Soulpatch Wishes - football fic - Spain/Barca crackfic
Soulpatch Wishes
Silva/Villa and/or Cesc/Pique if you want *is-it-gen-or-isn't-it jazz hands*. Very, very PG.
~2800 words
Set in a sort of vague indiscriminate time period in 2010, taking in various international breaks? Whatever. It's about magical facial hair, don't bring me down with canon.
It takes the same amount of time for people to stop making jokes about his dick and his goal tally, and start dropping hints about things they'd wish for.
Gerard
They would never have found out except for Pique's unerring obnoxiousness. It's Gerard who reaches out one day, gets Villa in a headlock, presses a thumb to his soulpatch and says, "What is this, anyway? Man, I wish my facial hair was as cool as this."
And bam, just like that, Pique's beard becomes a soulpatch, and David's life is over.
"Goddamnit," says Pique. "I wasn't serious."
Silva (sort of)
To their credit, his teammates respect David's personal space, for the most part. There's a week during which everyone on the team asks David the same set of questions: how, when, why; until he is ready to go awol. It takes the same amount of time for people to stop making jokes about his dick and his goal tally, and start dropping hints about things they'd wish for.
David gets it, he does, but if he was going to fix any club's money troubles it would be Valencia, and his future Barca teammates can go screw themselves.
He says as much to Silva when they're holed up in David's room, hiding from the others and playing FIFA. Silva laughs at him, but David can tell he's pleased.
"Would you ever?" Silva says, and leaves his players running uselessly down the wing while he looks over at David.
David shrugs. "No," he says. "Probably not. It'd be unfair, I guess."
He half heartedly scores into a practically open goal. "I wouldn't do it for myself anyway. Maybe if someone else asked. It depends."
"On what?"
David shrugs again. "I don't know. Who asked. Why they asked. It's not like wishing for a pony."
Silva grins. "Can I have a pony?"
David laughs at that, and finally looks up at Silva. "You want one?"
Silva shrugs. "Maybe," he says. "Not today though."
They both look back at the screen, where the ball is still in play and David's Valencia are running aimlessly towards their own goal. David makes one of them run in a neat circle and Silva takes the opportunity to pick up the ball and score before David's even aware they're playing again.
"What if I asked," says Silva, and David swears at him.
"You're a fucking cheat," he says. "Do you want me to? I don't know."
He frowns. "I don't know," he says again. "Probably." And then he deepens the frown and stabs a bit fiercely at the buttons on his controller. Silva smiles.
Torres
He puts a rule in place. One wish per person, don't fucking tell anyone, and David retains all rights of veto.
"Can I have a flying carpet?"
David looks at Torres.
"No," he says. "What the fuck. No."
"Can he wish that Liverpool buy a whole new team for him?"
Torres kicks the back of Busquets' knee and he crumples to the ground.
"Pipe down," David says, and Busquets glares.
"Can I wish to not get injured this season?"
David sighs. "No," he says. "If you wish that, everyone will want to wish that, and then it wouldn't be fair to people who can't wish that."
"No," he finishes. "Just, wish for a nice day tomorrow or something okay?"
Torres thinks for a moment. "Can we have a nice day on the eighth of July?"
"No," David says, "I don't mean literally, I mean you can think of something else-"
"It's Nora's birthday on the eighth," says Torres. "It would be nice if it was sunny, but not too hot."
David blinks. "Really?"
Torres nods, and shrugs.
"Okay."
"Thanks."
David wishes for every eighth of July to be sunny and warm.
Ramos
"Can I wish for a conditioner that never runs out and is perfectly suited to my hair?"
David tries his hardest to ignore Sergio, sitting across from him at lunch.
"David," Sergio says. "David, hey."
"David."
David sighs. He really doesn't like some of his teammates enough to be doing this. "Sure," he says. "If that's what you really want."
"It's actually really hard to find good hair products," Sergio says. The annoying thing is, David actually agrees.
Gerard (again)
Gerard kneels up on his chair and hangs over the back of the seat facing David. Cesc kneels up as well, rests his chin on the seat back and stares at David.
"Alright," Gerard says, "it's my turn."
David snorts. "No," he says, "you had yours."
"That is not fair," says Gerard. "I didn't mean the soulpatch one! Then I had to shave, and then it took me ages to cultivate this beard again!"
Puyol raises an eyebrow at him across the aisle, but Gerard doesn't care.
"By rights," he says, pointing a finger at David, "you should give me one just to apologise for that."
David slaps his hand away. "Give it up," he says. "This whole fucking thing is your fault. Don't even think you're the victim here."
"Both your lives," says Victor from behind David, "are so hard."
David makes a rude gesture and Cesc laughs.
"Come on," says Gerard. "I have a serious one."
"Oh just let him have it," Xavi says, finally turning away from the window to watch the conversation.
David scowls. "Go," he says. "But I keep veto."
Gerard pauses, shifts his arms on the seat and looks oddly serious.
"Could you wish that Cesc could come home?"
Everyone listening is suddenly very quiet. Gerard is watching David, and when David looks at Cesc, he is watching Gerard with a crushingly happy look on his face.
David swallows. "Gerard," he says. "Come on, you know I couldn't do that."
Gerard just looks at David and says, quietly, "With other people, yeah. But this is Cesc."
David can feel Xavi and Carles both looking at him, and he knows what they want him to say.
"David," Gerard starts, and then Cesc interrupts. He nudges Gerard with his elbow. "Hey," he says. "David's right. And we know I'll come back one day."
Gerard holds his gaze for a moment. Then he says, "I know," but he turns back to David and says, "But I'm tired of waiting. We all are."
David wants to die. He's half impressed at Gerard's ability to tug at his heartstrings and half appalled by it. He sighs. "Look," he says, "I mean it. I won't do that. I won't - I can't force anything."
Cesc bites his lip. David sighs again.
"How about if I wish that Arsenal will at least consider offers," he says. "Then everyone can still change their mind, either way."
After a moment, Gerard nods. "Thanks," he says. "Really, David."
David sort of jerks his head in response, and Gerard and Cesc turn around and sit back down in their seats. Cesc says something quiet to Gerard and Carles sticks a leg up and kicks the side of Gerard's seat.
"Save the smooching for the hotel," he says, and Gerard reaches around quick as anything and slaps his leg. Everyone laughs, and things are back to normal, but David still feels slightly guilty.
Cesc
Later when they're in the hotel, dispersing into their rooms, Cesc comes up behind David and says, "So I get one, right?"
David jumps. "Jesus," he says. "What? Do you - what?"
"A wish," Cesc prompts, "can I have mine?"
David stops walking and looks around them. He lowers his voice. "Yeah," he says, "but Cesc, I really - I can't do more than -"
"No," Cesc says, "I know."
"Oh." David relaxes. "Okay, what do you want?"
"Can I have a doughnut?"
David blinks. "Are you joking?"
Cesc shrugs. "No," he says. "I have a craving for one. And also, I figure most things you'll say no to anyway."
David stares at him and Cesc grins. "Relax David," he says. "It's just a doughnut."
David shakes his head. "Um," he says. "Go for it." And in Cesc's hand is a large glazed doughnut. Cesc looks at it. "Cool," he says. "Thanks, see you later."
He jogs off up the corridor, catches up with Pique at the lifts and as David watches, Gerard looks at the doughnut, looks back at David, and then says something to Cesc. Cesc shrugs. He holds the doughnut up and Gerard takes a bite. When Cesc tries to pull it away from him, Gerard follows it, and Cesc laughs loudly.
David looks away.
Silva (not quite)
It's the end of the international week and people are preparing to leave: arranging rides to the airport, or to see their families, or driving back to their respective cities. David stands next to Silva just inside the door and watches their teammates go out to the parking lot.
"It's never long enough," Silva says.
David says, "So wish for more time," and Silva smiles at him.
"I mean it," David says. "I could make it so you don't have to go back. I could wish for you to stay. I could wish for City to sell you."
Silva laughs. "You're ridiculous," he says. "David, I'm happy there, I just miss my friends here. You know how that is. You miss Valencia."
He waits for David to answer but David's mostly resisting the urge to make the wish anyway.
"I could wish for you not to miss them," he manages eventually, and Silva laughs again.
Pep
No one actually tells the manager. No one asks David if they should, it's just generally agreed that this is on a need to know basis, and Pep Guardiola, on top of everything else, does not need to know that one of his star players has the power to grant wishes.
So David doesn't exactly run it by Pep first, when he makes a wish for him, but he thinks it's justified. Pep's looking particularly frustrated with his players one morning and for a while David just stands there watching him, watching him argue with Xavi and shout at Bojan. Eventually he thinks, "I wish he'd just take a break."
Than he remembers he can do that, and so he does. And when Pep is sitting on the sidelines, head in his hands, David wishes for someone (someone else, someone who is not David, who has only been at the club for a month) to give him a hug. He watches Leo wander over and wrap his arms around Pep, resting his chin on Pep's head, and feels sort of accomplished.
It becomes a regular thing, especially when Leo starts hugging him without David's silent prompting, and it's the only time David ever makes a wish without someone's permission.
Dani Alves
They're lying around the training pitch during a break, drinking their supplemented energy drinks and complaining at the unseasonal heat.
"What I would give for an ice cold Coke right now," Dani says, arm across his face to shield it from the sun.
David ignores him, because David always ignores him.
"Just one cool Coke."
David carries on ignoring him
"Wouldn't it be great," Dani says, way too loudly, "if there was someone who could get that for me at a moment's notice."
David shuts his eyes.
"Someone who could so easily, so simply, get that for me."
"So easily," he says. "So simple."
David scowls.
"It's just a pity that person is a selfish bastard who-"
"Oh for fuck's sake," David says. "For fuck's sake!" And he rubs at his soulpatch. An ice cold bottle of Pepsi appears in Dani's hand, beads of condensation running down the glass sides, lid off, looking like it's come straight out of an ad.
Dani makes a face. "Pepsi?"
David stands up. "You are the most annoying person I have ever met," he says, and stomps off.
Silva (except, Tevez really)
Silva calls, a few weeks into the new season. Actually, he calls every week in the new season, and they catch up and talk about the games and the teams and everything else they used to talk about when they saw each other every day.
But then Silva calls up and they talk about those things for half an hour and then there's some long silences which David tries to fill but Silva isn't really paying attention.
"So," Silva finally says. "This wish thing."
Oh, David thinks, and gets kind of hot around the collar.
"It's just," Silva says, stuttering slightly and failing to get his words out. "I mean I wasn't going to ask you-"
"Hey," David says. "It's fine. I mean. It's you."
There's a pause, and David gets even warmer. "I mean," he clarifies, "I know you wouldn't ask for anything stupid."
"Right," says Silva, "only - it is kind of stupid. But it isn't for me."
"It's Carlos," he says, and David feels like an idiot.
"He's just really unhappy, David. He's homesick and all he gets is negative press and he misses his daughters."
David doesn't really care. Except that Silva does, so. "What do you want to do?"
Silva sounds relieved. "Just - wish for them to give him a week off or something? Just so he can have a break, with his family?"
"Fine." But only because you asked, he doesn't add.
"Thank you," Silva says, and David contemplates wishing for Silva to get a week off instead. "I knew you'd understand."
(not) Xavi
"You have to do this."
"No."
"David, you have to do this. You don't understand."
David smirks. "I understand perfectly," he says. "How long have I been playing with you both? But no."
Xavi stares at David like he is out of his mind. "Why would you not want to do this?"
"Xavi," David is amused more than anything, but he's not going to have this conversation forever. "I know this is hard for you to understand, but not everyone hates Carles' hair as much as you do."
Xavi does not look like he believes him.
"What about," he says. "If it just disappears overnight? Or Malena demands it gone? Or Pep takes the captaincy away until he cuts it off?"
David just stares at him.
Xavi sighs, irritated. "Fine," he says. "Fine. Forget it, I don't want your stupid wish anyway."
After that, David revokes all wish privilidges.
"Tough," he says to those who never got their wish. "Tough fucking luck." He's tired of having stupid conversations about hair and providing people with food just because they're too lazy to go get it themselves. From now on he's only making wishes for people who actually need them.
Silva
It's the end of another international break. Silva comes back to David's house before he leaves. They cook together and eat it on David's balcony, looking out at quiet Barcelona streets. They get to talking about Valencia and remembering when they didn't know each other well. When David was suspicious of how quiet Silva was, when they both thought the other didn't like them very much. Now they can laugh about it and David teases him, asks if he's alienating all his teammates at City in the same way.
They talk until it's time for Silva to leave and again David just wants to say something, something honest and not the ways he has of skipping around the point.
"I heard you stopped handing out wishes," Silva says, standing in the open door.
David shrugs. "It was a pretty stupid idea," he says.
"I know," says Silva. "Honestly? I was just waiting for you to realise that since the first day."
David snorts. "You couldn't have told me?"
Silva laughs. "And miss all the fun?"
They look at each other, smiling, until Silva looks away and steps back, onto the front step. "I should go," he says.
"Yeah," David says, and Silva's down the steps and getting into his car before he knows it.
"I'll see you," he says through the car window, and David nods and waves a hand.
Silva doesn't start the car though, he just looks to his right and then looks back at David, squinting up at him against the sun. "You know," he says, and the words tumble out of him so quick. "I wish you'd just- say whatever you want to say."
David crosses his arms.
"What-" he starts, and then stops, rethinks. "I don't-" he tries again.
"I wish you'd stay," he finishes, lamely, but he doesn't touch his face, just stares at the ground and crosses his arms tighter together.
"I wish you'd come and visit," Silva says, and David looks at him. He's smiling. David shrugs. Silva gets out of the car and leans against it. "So what do you want to say?"
David scowls at him and Silva grins. "I miss you," he says.
"Me too," David says, finally.
Silva steps forward and hugs him. "And I didn't even have to wish it out of you," he says. David just hugs him back.
Silva/Villa and/or Cesc/Pique if you want *is-it-gen-or-isn't-it jazz hands*. Very, very PG.
~2800 words
Set in a sort of vague indiscriminate time period in 2010, taking in various international breaks? Whatever. It's about magical facial hair, don't bring me down with canon.
It takes the same amount of time for people to stop making jokes about his dick and his goal tally, and start dropping hints about things they'd wish for.
Gerard
They would never have found out except for Pique's unerring obnoxiousness. It's Gerard who reaches out one day, gets Villa in a headlock, presses a thumb to his soulpatch and says, "What is this, anyway? Man, I wish my facial hair was as cool as this."
And bam, just like that, Pique's beard becomes a soulpatch, and David's life is over.
"Goddamnit," says Pique. "I wasn't serious."
Silva (sort of)
To their credit, his teammates respect David's personal space, for the most part. There's a week during which everyone on the team asks David the same set of questions: how, when, why; until he is ready to go awol. It takes the same amount of time for people to stop making jokes about his dick and his goal tally, and start dropping hints about things they'd wish for.
David gets it, he does, but if he was going to fix any club's money troubles it would be Valencia, and his future Barca teammates can go screw themselves.
He says as much to Silva when they're holed up in David's room, hiding from the others and playing FIFA. Silva laughs at him, but David can tell he's pleased.
"Would you ever?" Silva says, and leaves his players running uselessly down the wing while he looks over at David.
David shrugs. "No," he says. "Probably not. It'd be unfair, I guess."
He half heartedly scores into a practically open goal. "I wouldn't do it for myself anyway. Maybe if someone else asked. It depends."
"On what?"
David shrugs again. "I don't know. Who asked. Why they asked. It's not like wishing for a pony."
Silva grins. "Can I have a pony?"
David laughs at that, and finally looks up at Silva. "You want one?"
Silva shrugs. "Maybe," he says. "Not today though."
They both look back at the screen, where the ball is still in play and David's Valencia are running aimlessly towards their own goal. David makes one of them run in a neat circle and Silva takes the opportunity to pick up the ball and score before David's even aware they're playing again.
"What if I asked," says Silva, and David swears at him.
"You're a fucking cheat," he says. "Do you want me to? I don't know."
He frowns. "I don't know," he says again. "Probably." And then he deepens the frown and stabs a bit fiercely at the buttons on his controller. Silva smiles.
Torres
He puts a rule in place. One wish per person, don't fucking tell anyone, and David retains all rights of veto.
"Can I have a flying carpet?"
David looks at Torres.
"No," he says. "What the fuck. No."
"Can he wish that Liverpool buy a whole new team for him?"
Torres kicks the back of Busquets' knee and he crumples to the ground.
"Pipe down," David says, and Busquets glares.
"Can I wish to not get injured this season?"
David sighs. "No," he says. "If you wish that, everyone will want to wish that, and then it wouldn't be fair to people who can't wish that."
"No," he finishes. "Just, wish for a nice day tomorrow or something okay?"
Torres thinks for a moment. "Can we have a nice day on the eighth of July?"
"No," David says, "I don't mean literally, I mean you can think of something else-"
"It's Nora's birthday on the eighth," says Torres. "It would be nice if it was sunny, but not too hot."
David blinks. "Really?"
Torres nods, and shrugs.
"Okay."
"Thanks."
David wishes for every eighth of July to be sunny and warm.
Ramos
"Can I wish for a conditioner that never runs out and is perfectly suited to my hair?"
David tries his hardest to ignore Sergio, sitting across from him at lunch.
"David," Sergio says. "David, hey."
"David."
David sighs. He really doesn't like some of his teammates enough to be doing this. "Sure," he says. "If that's what you really want."
"It's actually really hard to find good hair products," Sergio says. The annoying thing is, David actually agrees.
Gerard (again)
Gerard kneels up on his chair and hangs over the back of the seat facing David. Cesc kneels up as well, rests his chin on the seat back and stares at David.
"Alright," Gerard says, "it's my turn."
David snorts. "No," he says, "you had yours."
"That is not fair," says Gerard. "I didn't mean the soulpatch one! Then I had to shave, and then it took me ages to cultivate this beard again!"
Puyol raises an eyebrow at him across the aisle, but Gerard doesn't care.
"By rights," he says, pointing a finger at David, "you should give me one just to apologise for that."
David slaps his hand away. "Give it up," he says. "This whole fucking thing is your fault. Don't even think you're the victim here."
"Both your lives," says Victor from behind David, "are so hard."
David makes a rude gesture and Cesc laughs.
"Come on," says Gerard. "I have a serious one."
"Oh just let him have it," Xavi says, finally turning away from the window to watch the conversation.
David scowls. "Go," he says. "But I keep veto."
Gerard pauses, shifts his arms on the seat and looks oddly serious.
"Could you wish that Cesc could come home?"
Everyone listening is suddenly very quiet. Gerard is watching David, and when David looks at Cesc, he is watching Gerard with a crushingly happy look on his face.
David swallows. "Gerard," he says. "Come on, you know I couldn't do that."
Gerard just looks at David and says, quietly, "With other people, yeah. But this is Cesc."
David can feel Xavi and Carles both looking at him, and he knows what they want him to say.
"David," Gerard starts, and then Cesc interrupts. He nudges Gerard with his elbow. "Hey," he says. "David's right. And we know I'll come back one day."
Gerard holds his gaze for a moment. Then he says, "I know," but he turns back to David and says, "But I'm tired of waiting. We all are."
David wants to die. He's half impressed at Gerard's ability to tug at his heartstrings and half appalled by it. He sighs. "Look," he says, "I mean it. I won't do that. I won't - I can't force anything."
Cesc bites his lip. David sighs again.
"How about if I wish that Arsenal will at least consider offers," he says. "Then everyone can still change their mind, either way."
After a moment, Gerard nods. "Thanks," he says. "Really, David."
David sort of jerks his head in response, and Gerard and Cesc turn around and sit back down in their seats. Cesc says something quiet to Gerard and Carles sticks a leg up and kicks the side of Gerard's seat.
"Save the smooching for the hotel," he says, and Gerard reaches around quick as anything and slaps his leg. Everyone laughs, and things are back to normal, but David still feels slightly guilty.
Cesc
Later when they're in the hotel, dispersing into their rooms, Cesc comes up behind David and says, "So I get one, right?"
David jumps. "Jesus," he says. "What? Do you - what?"
"A wish," Cesc prompts, "can I have mine?"
David stops walking and looks around them. He lowers his voice. "Yeah," he says, "but Cesc, I really - I can't do more than -"
"No," Cesc says, "I know."
"Oh." David relaxes. "Okay, what do you want?"
"Can I have a doughnut?"
David blinks. "Are you joking?"
Cesc shrugs. "No," he says. "I have a craving for one. And also, I figure most things you'll say no to anyway."
David stares at him and Cesc grins. "Relax David," he says. "It's just a doughnut."
David shakes his head. "Um," he says. "Go for it." And in Cesc's hand is a large glazed doughnut. Cesc looks at it. "Cool," he says. "Thanks, see you later."
He jogs off up the corridor, catches up with Pique at the lifts and as David watches, Gerard looks at the doughnut, looks back at David, and then says something to Cesc. Cesc shrugs. He holds the doughnut up and Gerard takes a bite. When Cesc tries to pull it away from him, Gerard follows it, and Cesc laughs loudly.
David looks away.
Silva (not quite)
It's the end of the international week and people are preparing to leave: arranging rides to the airport, or to see their families, or driving back to their respective cities. David stands next to Silva just inside the door and watches their teammates go out to the parking lot.
"It's never long enough," Silva says.
David says, "So wish for more time," and Silva smiles at him.
"I mean it," David says. "I could make it so you don't have to go back. I could wish for you to stay. I could wish for City to sell you."
Silva laughs. "You're ridiculous," he says. "David, I'm happy there, I just miss my friends here. You know how that is. You miss Valencia."
He waits for David to answer but David's mostly resisting the urge to make the wish anyway.
"I could wish for you not to miss them," he manages eventually, and Silva laughs again.
Pep
No one actually tells the manager. No one asks David if they should, it's just generally agreed that this is on a need to know basis, and Pep Guardiola, on top of everything else, does not need to know that one of his star players has the power to grant wishes.
So David doesn't exactly run it by Pep first, when he makes a wish for him, but he thinks it's justified. Pep's looking particularly frustrated with his players one morning and for a while David just stands there watching him, watching him argue with Xavi and shout at Bojan. Eventually he thinks, "I wish he'd just take a break."
Than he remembers he can do that, and so he does. And when Pep is sitting on the sidelines, head in his hands, David wishes for someone (someone else, someone who is not David, who has only been at the club for a month) to give him a hug. He watches Leo wander over and wrap his arms around Pep, resting his chin on Pep's head, and feels sort of accomplished.
It becomes a regular thing, especially when Leo starts hugging him without David's silent prompting, and it's the only time David ever makes a wish without someone's permission.
Dani Alves
They're lying around the training pitch during a break, drinking their supplemented energy drinks and complaining at the unseasonal heat.
"What I would give for an ice cold Coke right now," Dani says, arm across his face to shield it from the sun.
David ignores him, because David always ignores him.
"Just one cool Coke."
David carries on ignoring him
"Wouldn't it be great," Dani says, way too loudly, "if there was someone who could get that for me at a moment's notice."
David shuts his eyes.
"Someone who could so easily, so simply, get that for me."
"So easily," he says. "So simple."
David scowls.
"It's just a pity that person is a selfish bastard who-"
"Oh for fuck's sake," David says. "For fuck's sake!" And he rubs at his soulpatch. An ice cold bottle of Pepsi appears in Dani's hand, beads of condensation running down the glass sides, lid off, looking like it's come straight out of an ad.
Dani makes a face. "Pepsi?"
David stands up. "You are the most annoying person I have ever met," he says, and stomps off.
Silva (except, Tevez really)
Silva calls, a few weeks into the new season. Actually, he calls every week in the new season, and they catch up and talk about the games and the teams and everything else they used to talk about when they saw each other every day.
But then Silva calls up and they talk about those things for half an hour and then there's some long silences which David tries to fill but Silva isn't really paying attention.
"So," Silva finally says. "This wish thing."
Oh, David thinks, and gets kind of hot around the collar.
"It's just," Silva says, stuttering slightly and failing to get his words out. "I mean I wasn't going to ask you-"
"Hey," David says. "It's fine. I mean. It's you."
There's a pause, and David gets even warmer. "I mean," he clarifies, "I know you wouldn't ask for anything stupid."
"Right," says Silva, "only - it is kind of stupid. But it isn't for me."
"It's Carlos," he says, and David feels like an idiot.
"He's just really unhappy, David. He's homesick and all he gets is negative press and he misses his daughters."
David doesn't really care. Except that Silva does, so. "What do you want to do?"
Silva sounds relieved. "Just - wish for them to give him a week off or something? Just so he can have a break, with his family?"
"Fine." But only because you asked, he doesn't add.
"Thank you," Silva says, and David contemplates wishing for Silva to get a week off instead. "I knew you'd understand."
(not) Xavi
"You have to do this."
"No."
"David, you have to do this. You don't understand."
David smirks. "I understand perfectly," he says. "How long have I been playing with you both? But no."
Xavi stares at David like he is out of his mind. "Why would you not want to do this?"
"Xavi," David is amused more than anything, but he's not going to have this conversation forever. "I know this is hard for you to understand, but not everyone hates Carles' hair as much as you do."
Xavi does not look like he believes him.
"What about," he says. "If it just disappears overnight? Or Malena demands it gone? Or Pep takes the captaincy away until he cuts it off?"
David just stares at him.
Xavi sighs, irritated. "Fine," he says. "Fine. Forget it, I don't want your stupid wish anyway."
After that, David revokes all wish privilidges.
"Tough," he says to those who never got their wish. "Tough fucking luck." He's tired of having stupid conversations about hair and providing people with food just because they're too lazy to go get it themselves. From now on he's only making wishes for people who actually need them.
Silva
It's the end of another international break. Silva comes back to David's house before he leaves. They cook together and eat it on David's balcony, looking out at quiet Barcelona streets. They get to talking about Valencia and remembering when they didn't know each other well. When David was suspicious of how quiet Silva was, when they both thought the other didn't like them very much. Now they can laugh about it and David teases him, asks if he's alienating all his teammates at City in the same way.
They talk until it's time for Silva to leave and again David just wants to say something, something honest and not the ways he has of skipping around the point.
"I heard you stopped handing out wishes," Silva says, standing in the open door.
David shrugs. "It was a pretty stupid idea," he says.
"I know," says Silva. "Honestly? I was just waiting for you to realise that since the first day."
David snorts. "You couldn't have told me?"
Silva laughs. "And miss all the fun?"
They look at each other, smiling, until Silva looks away and steps back, onto the front step. "I should go," he says.
"Yeah," David says, and Silva's down the steps and getting into his car before he knows it.
"I'll see you," he says through the car window, and David nods and waves a hand.
Silva doesn't start the car though, he just looks to his right and then looks back at David, squinting up at him against the sun. "You know," he says, and the words tumble out of him so quick. "I wish you'd just- say whatever you want to say."
David crosses his arms.
"What-" he starts, and then stops, rethinks. "I don't-" he tries again.
"I wish you'd stay," he finishes, lamely, but he doesn't touch his face, just stares at the ground and crosses his arms tighter together.
"I wish you'd come and visit," Silva says, and David looks at him. He's smiling. David shrugs. Silva gets out of the car and leans against it. "So what do you want to say?"
David scowls at him and Silva grins. "I miss you," he says.
"Me too," David says, finally.
Silva steps forward and hugs him. "And I didn't even have to wish it out of you," he says. David just hugs him back.